Federal Grants Aid Health Care Project at Charter School

Two grants from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that together total about $2.3 million are being used to expand health care services at a clinic at a California charter school and help train nurses and other care providers.

The projects are part of a partnership involving El Sol Science and Arts Academy in Santa Ana, California, Share Our Selves (SOS), a health and community services organization, the University of California Irvine Program in Nursing Science, and Healthy Smiles for Kids of Orange County. Health services are provided at the school at a modular facility with six examination rooms. SOS manages the program as a free clinic but seeks to enroll the recipients of services in government reimbursement programs if they are eligible.

The university’s Program in Nursing Science is managing a 5-year grant totaling $1.5 million that will put nurse practitioners in the charter school clinic starting in January 2012, according to Susanne J. Phillips, Associate Clinical Professor and Coordinator for the Family Nurse Practitioner Concentration.

The Nursing Education Practice and Quality Retention Grant has the goals of training nurses in primary care and providing care in an underserved community. Primary care will be provided to the students and their families through the Share Our Selves clinic operated on the charter school’s campus. About 80 percent of the students enrolled at El Sol Science and Arts Academy are eligible for federal free or reduced-price lunch. Phillips said the connection with El Sol was made through one of the nurses at the university program who had been volunteering at the school through a Merage Foundations project.

Phillips said the grant requires that a model be developed by year four for sustaining the work after the grant expires. “It’s not that they’ve given us the money and we’ll do this for five years and then be gone,” Phillips said. “Billing is part of it, and creating a faculty practice model that we can continue with.” Part of the project will involve screening members of the El Sol community for eligibility for government programs that provide reimbursement for health care services.

A nurse practitioner has been hired for 20 hours per week, according to Phillips. Three faculty members, including Phillips, also will work at the clinic. By the second year of the grant, the program also will provide the school’s health education curriculum.

A four-year Children’s Oral Health Care Access Program grant totaling $820,000 and awarded through HRSA will support dental services at the SOS-El Sol Wellness Clinic. The Healthy Smiles mobile dental unit will go to El Sol 2.5 days a week, providing care to students and their families. A permanent site for dental care at the school is expected to be developed by 2013 through a separate fundraising effort.